Navigate:

Beard takes heat for greening Capitol

Text Size

-

+

reset

Dan Beard, the chief administrator of the House, talks to POLITICO about greening the Capitol.
John Shinkle

Dan Beard has always wanted to be a greeter at Wal-Mart.

Plenty of Republicans would be happy to see him take that job — or anything else that would get him away from the Capitol. But Beard, 65, says he’s in no hurry to leave his post as the chief administrative officer of the House of Representatives — a nonpartisan job that has earned him partisan complaints because he is carrying out an ambitious environmental agenda in what traditionally has been a bureaucratic job.

“I’m having the time of my life,” Beard said during a recent interview at the Capitol. “I love the people I work for and the people I work with. It is exciting, interesting work, and I don’t see any reason to leave.”

It’s not too hard to picture Beard as a greeter. Most days, the suspender-wearing glad-hander can be found in his basement office or wandering the Capitol complex, checking in on his staff, which handles everything from computer security to reupholstering old chairs.

Since coming to the Capitol, Beard has quickly become the bureaucrat that Republicans love to hate, whether it’s re-engineering the House cafeterias, installing environmentally friendly light bulbs or trying to get rid of the coal at the Capitol Power Plant.

Beard is the brains behind the Green the Capitol initiative, following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s mandate to make the organization more sustainable. But the goal goes beyond green, he said.

“I’m the leader of an organization. We’re trying to deliver services to the members and make this an efficient, well-run organization,” Beard said.

Smaller changes may go unnoticed by some. For instance, he’s taken the House out of the résumé-writing business — employees leaving Capitol Hill jobs used to be provided transition services, but Beard decided career websites could handle the work. Beard has also reduced the number of employees he manages to 650, down from 730 when he took over the chief administrative officer duties.

His highest-profile changes — and the ones that Republicans have grumbled about — involve environmental policies and food. Restaurant service was completely overhauled in the 110th Congress — as Beard outsourced the food provider, created healthier menus and dramatically increased recycling in the cafeterias, which now use biodegradable spoons, trays, cups and plates.

Green the Capitol has ushered in the use of energy-efficient light bulbs, composting and a stronger push to use natural gas instead of coal at the Capitol Power Plant.

And Beard is insistent that despite the tough economy and higher short-term costs, the greening will not be halted.

Republicans at the Capitol, however, see something else in this green push: an excessive price tag.

The expense of projects such as a proposed dome relighting has drawn criticism from Republicans who believe cost savings won’t be recouped for decades.

Last summer, Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) sent a letter to the speaker, demanding Beard be fired for his purchase of controversial carbon offsets, the dome relighting plan and trips around the country.

Boehner hasn’t backed down.

“The CAO position was created to provide effective, nonpartisan and professional administration of the House. Regrettably, Mr. Beard’s performance has been neither nonpartisan nor professional,” said Michael Steel, Boehner’s press secretary.

Beard has never been popular with Republicans who expressed skepticism that a professional Democratic staffer and two-time presidential appointee would be right for what is ostensibly a nonpartisan administrative job.

But Beard has already chosen his next quarry in the green initiative: light switches and truck emissions.

Readers' Comments (6)

Sounds like a man with principle to me. He believes in getting his message across by precept and example, and, if my reading of this article is correct, he's doing it. Poor Boehner! There seems not to be very much with which he can be in agreement -- these days and even last summer, before his party was rejected at the polls in November. :o(

I would agree with that. He wants to impose his agenda of greenness on the capitol and seeing as how he doesn't have to pay for the costs of doing so, but the taxpayers do, cost is not part of his decision making process. While that may be a pincipal, the American people will reject it when they finally realize someone else's desires are being funded by their own money.

Poor, poor Republicans have to have something to have hissie fits about. They shouild be embracing the changes that are being made, but again they are playing point men for the industries that want to continue with the status quo; Like coal. Why don't they just take their votes and go home!

A perversion of history, historical paintings of the west hold intregue. The calvery paid bounties for scalps of Native Americans. Rarely, natives would scalp white men for the reward. Usually it was white invaders who returned scalps for bounties. Such paintings were useful to convince settlers to kill natives and steal their land, ridding their guilt by blaming natives for our own savagery. Don Young probably wants the painting because he sees himself as the wielder of power over life and death, and to relieve his own guilt.